The Power of Words...

After a photo session this morning and a commercial this afternoon, I was looking back through my photos in my facebook photo album. One thing I have not included in my book yet are some of the things other people have said when commenting on my photos, and I wanted to make sure that I saved their comments. In no particular order, here are some of the words of encouragement that friends and acquaintances have left for me:

 

"Go, Ed!" - Mark Shimeal, November 6, 2009 (college roommate)

 

"Oh my goodness! You almost don't even look like the same person!" - Sandy George (friend)

 

"Who are you and what have you done with my brother?" - Kim Stady (my sister)

 

"I couldn't believe how awesome you look, when I saw you this past weekend! Praying for you every day!" - Linda Keffer - music evangelist's wife

 

"You're doing great... keep it up!" - Skip Braswell, season 1 winner

 

"You look amazing!!! You are doing awesome!" - Rebecca Kitchens, former teen from my youth group

 

"You look absolutely amazing!!!!! WOW!!! I am so thrilled for you!! Now, the real hard part will be keeping it off. But I know you will." - Jenny Gottschalk, high school classmate

 

"WOW! Just WOW! You look great and I'm soooo impressed by anyone with that kind of will power" -  Liz Hill, NBC Augusta news anchor

 

"uhmmm.ok....you can stop now! :) you look amazing!" - Liz Hill (again)

 

"Ed... you look great brother... great work... I am glad that you have the support and adoration of many friends, family and NBC..." - Barry Allison, blue team trainer

 

"Awesome!!!!! SOOO PROUD to share the WINNER's stage with YOU!!!"- Kristy Youngblood, season 1 winner

 

"Eddie ~ I'm still amazed when I see these pictures side-by-side. It's such a remarkable change! You should be so proud of yourself and I know that you've been an encouragement to so many others." - Sheila Hiler, friend from college

 

So many others have left notes, emailed me, texted me, and snail-mailed me their best wishes and compliments; I want to tell all of you who may read your comments here that your words of encouragement kept me going through the entire process. This, of course, does not include the weekly encouragement by so many in my Lumpkin Road Baptist Church family... you guys are the best!

 

I am living proof of the power of words; it's a lesson we could all stand to learn. Before you tear someone down with your words, understand that you may be impacting their life, for the rest of their life. Choose carefully.

 

 

 

 

And The Media Frenzy Starts...

Got up this morning early and hit the hospitals to visit our sick... I got up with my wife... it was so nice to get ready and spend a little time together in the morning. Before losing my weight, I was hard-pressed to get out of bed in the morning; during Augusta's Biggest Loser, I was leaving at 5 AM (4 AM during "crunch week"). So it's nice to be on the same schedule with her every now and then, even if I still plan to hit the gym early some mornings.

I got into the office around 8:30, went to program some changes into our digital sign. Couldn't connect to the sign... lovely. Nearly an hour of tinkering, and I finally got the computer to talk to the sign. This, after half a Monday of the piano totally flummoxing our tuner with a loud squeak. We had our staff meeting, I did some more work, and then had an appointment at PHC at 12:30.

Mark, Donna, and the usually-missing Patricia were there today (Patricia is their nurse who is spread around quite a bit). For the first time EVER, Donna was happy to see that I had GAINED some weight, because my finale weight was a little light for me. (For those of you keeping score at home, yes, I am totally aware of how drawn and thin my face looked - Donna told me some of you were complaining at the finale!) Anyway, Mark had sent me an email Monday night and told me that they wanted to take my "after" pictures on Tuesday. "Yeah, let us eat for a week, and THEN schedule our "after" pictures", I thought. But they probably came out better, because the sunken face has filled back out just a little with re-hydration. What he DIDN'T tell me was that these pictures were not for my file, nor for the bulletin board in the foyer... they were for the new PHC ad in the Yellow Pages... yes, my ugly mug will be gracing homes all over Augusta for the next year! The main purpose for my visit, ostensibly, was to get the specifics on stabilization and maintenance. This is the part of the program where, for the next six weeks, they gradually add more food selections back to your diet, in very specific quantities, and help you learn to eat like a normal person should. After six months of "thou shalt not", I'm finding that I am already bucking against "it's okay"... six months of avoiding certain foods like the plague, I now have to establish a new relationship with them. The philosophy for maintenance is this: three pounds above your desired weight, and it's time to start back on the heavy work again to get it back down. Seems logical to me: three pounds is not an unmanageable amount. I have a feeling that most people would set their "danger weight" a bit higher, like 10 or 15 pounds. The problem, though, is that it never stays at 10-15 pounds - it usually grows to 20, then 25, then we're buying larger clothes again, and before you know it, we re-gain everything PLUS a few more. My mutually-agreed upon weight is in the 205-210 range; therefore, at 213, I will shift back into weight-LOSS mode instead of weight-maintenance mode. I would guess that those people who successfully keep it off go in and out of that mode quite often. After six months, weight-loss mode is second nature to me now. One of the things Pat had me do today was write a list of all the foods I have missed... I really had to think hard, and those that I wrote down, I put question marks beside them. I can't really say that there's anything much that I miss. I thought of burgers and pizza, but as I mentioned, I had some pizza, and it made me sick, and it just seemed like a slab of grease on a hunk of cardboard.

I went back to work after my PHC appointment, and two hours later, my phone rang. It was Tina Terry, a reporter from NBC Augusta, who was on a mission to get some fresh material to air on the evening news tonight. She gave me the choice of her coming over to the church, or me coming down to the station. I had somewhere to be tonight, so I told her I would go to the station, lest we waste half an hour finding a suitable background with suitable lighting, etc. So I hopped in the car, headed down to the TV station, and let Tina ask me questions about my experience. She was not as impressed with what I had done, because she had never seen a "before" picture of me. I guess by the time she finished putting the story together tonight, she probably had gone into the archives and found my fat pictures - the station has a couple on file. One little tidbit: when the reporter IS the cameraman, you have to do a little bit of misdirection to make everyone think you are talking to someone off to the side of the camera. If you're watching an interview on local TV, and you don't see the reporter, the subject is looking at a spot away from the camera and, usually, away from the reporter. I've done a couple of these now, and it's a weird experience.

After the interview, I met a few guys from the church at Rhinehart's 'Orshter' Bar (I can't help it, that's how the owner, Amy, pronounces "oyster"). I'm not much of a seafood eater, but I told myself that I go back into weight-loss mode tomorrow (that three-pound thing), so I will enjoy a dinner tonight of not having to watch every little bite. I told myself I would eat the fish, but not the breading, where I thought most of the grease would live. Wrong. EVERYTHING I put in my mouth was saturated in grease. I gave away about a third of my fries, left some on my plate... didn't finish the fish... I was supposed to go to a shooting range with them, but by the time everyone was done eating, I was sick. Not throwing-up sick, but violently-cramping sick. I had to excuse myself and go home. One of the guys said, "I guess your stomach isn't used to real food." I didn't give it much thought at the time, but later it crossed my mind that "real" food is what I've been eating for the last six months - lean meats, veggies, fruits, whole wheat, lots of protein, little fat - and the stuff on my plate tonight is the kind of stuff that helped pave the way to 342 pounds. (Incidentally, each Biggest Loser contestant got a gift certificate to Rhinehart's... and I won't even begin to address the irony in THAT.) I got home, and they had just started airing the ABL finale. I arrived just in time to see my "after" video, and me standing on the stage and watching my numbers be revealed. Brenda's phone started ringing - old co-workers were watching, and reporting in. I tossed back a triple dose of Maalox (something I had not needed since starting the competition), and watched everyone else's part of the show.

After our show went off, the network aired the live finale of the hit show, "The Biggest Loser". About half an hour in, I got a nice note from Kristy Youngblood. She said that she noticed that so far, I had done better than the at-home participants in the national show. Eventually, they did get to some who had done better, but my 41.38% ranks right up there near the top. 20 more pounds would have had me beating Daris, the third finalist. As Johnnie pointed out, we didn't have the benefit of 6-8 hour a day guided workouts; we had our trainer for one hour a day, three days a week, and the rest was up to us.

I'm struggling to stay awake for the 11 PM newscast; I want to see what Nandy said to Tina Terry today, if she got interviewed. Then off to bed; and tomorrow, getting serious again about the weight. I haven't gone too far off the rails (with the exception of tonight); I look forward to getting back in the groove. I'm already fully-stocked on fruit, chicken, stir-fry veggies, tuna, yogurt, fat-free cheeses, eggs, and the other foods that helped me bid the old me a fond farewell.

The Contest Is Over...

It's been nearly a week since I wrote anything, and I still haven't gotten around to the "thank you" post I promised. It's coming, but not right now.

 

This first week post-ABL has been very busy for me. I never got around to eating that steak I said I would eat in my last post. I've not had any beef yet - still a little afraid of what effect it may have on my beefless-for-six-months digestive system. I've eaten fairly close to what I was eating during the competition - not quite as much tuna, and added some carbs back into my diet. I have actually eaten out a few times since the finale, but I had chicken twice and grilled pork tenderloin once. Last Saturday we had lunch with our best friends, at my insistence. They have been so supportive and encouraging throughout this whole process, as everyone's friends have been, and I wanted to start making up time with them. That was a trip to Cracker Barrel, where I had a grilled chicken sandwich. Tuesday night we went to O'Charley's with my parents (a late Mother's Day dinner). My normal fare there would have been an appetizer of fried cheese, two or three rolls, a triple-cheese bacon burger, and regular fries. This time, I had a grilled chicken sandwich (notice a common thread here?), sweet potato fries, and a side salad.

 

One of the prizes we all won as Biggest Loser contestants was $25 to French Market Grill West. I'd never been, but we had the certificate, so we might as well use it, I figured. The food was good; the waiter got a little perturbed with me when I asked for "lite ranch dressing". He tried to tell me that there was no such thing, that it's the exact same dressing, just labeled differently so people would buy it. I wanted to say, "Buddy, I've been reading nutrition labels every day for the last six months - don't tell me there's no difference." He wouldn't let it go, so I said, "just bring me regular ranch, then... I'm not going to argue with you over salad dressing." As it turned out, there wasn't enough dressing on the salad to argue about! (For the record, regular ranch is 148 calories and 15 grams of fat; lite ranch is 48 calories and .3 grams of fat.) But the food was good - pork tenderloin, carrot-broccoli vegetable medley, and a scoop of garlic mashed potatoes (yes, I ate the potatoes. At $16 bucks a plate, I'm not leaving four dollars' worth of food sitting there! Besides.... the contest is over.) Had a wonderful date night with my lovely, shrinking-waistline wife! My plan for this morning was to make her breakfast in bed, but she got up anyway, so we ate at the table. Breakfast was bacon-egg-cheese burritos. Lest you become concerned about my breakfast choice, the tortilla shells I found this morning were just about the best ones nutritionally that I have seen - the contents are almost identical to one slice of wheat bread. Same carbs, nearly the same calories, everything. The filling was a scrambled egg, a chopped-up slice of turkey bacon with the grease drained off, and a dash of fat free shredded cheese. Thought we had some green peppers, but got home and didn't find them. It was a little bland, but still very good, and only around 200 calories. Even with the constraints of the contest off of me, I still check the calories, carbs, fat, sodium, and protein of everything I eat. Hopefully, a habit for life.

 

The contest is over. THOSE words are taking some getting used to. For the last six months, we have had the structure of daily workouts (with our trainer on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; on our own on the other days) and regular appointments with PHC. Since Mark and Donna Plants usually came to work out with us at least twice a week, it was almost like having four PHC appointments a week - two at their place, two at Omni. In talking to some of my fellow teammates, "a little lost" or "disconnected" is the general feeling that is floating to the surface. I have stayed in touch with PHC this week, not for an appointment or anything, just staying in contact, seeing what their plans are for my future, etc. Because of an extremely busy (and largely sleepless) week, I did not go by Omni to get my membership put into their system until lunchtime on Friday. I have been doing some running on my own, and when I went to the gym Saturday morning and hopped on a treadmill, I discovered that one week off does not mean I have to start from scratch. I was running intervals at the exact same speeds I was running the week before the finale. Actually, this has been a week of letting my body rest and re-hydrate thoroughly, and I think it has done me some good. Is my weight up? Of course - it took some dehydration to get down to 199 in time for the final weigh-in, and a gallon of water weighs eight pounds. My weight is currently hanging around 210, which is about what it was in the picture I posted as my official "after" picture - the one in the black shirt and khaki pants in my green office. I was discussing via e-mail with Donna at PHC what weight I should look to maintain, because obviously 199 was an aberration - my face looked horribly sunken in when I saw the pictures from the finale. She told me to check the BMI tables and see what I needed to weigh to have a body mass index of under 25. Well, the number I came up with was 189 pounds... I wrote her back and told her no way was I going to try and maintain my weight that low. She agreed that was probably not a healthy weight for someone of my stature, and we settled on keeping it around 210. I suggested 215, but 210 is doable. I may eventually end up a little lower, but it will be the loss of body fat over time through healthy eating and exercise habits, not a mad rush to hit a target by a deadline. I may also end up a little higher, if I start adding some muscle. Bottom line is, I want to look healthy, BE healthy, and fit comfortably into the clothes that I am wearing right now.

 

(Programming Note: If you live in the Augusta, Georgia area, you can see the first half-hour of our finale this Tuesday night at 7:30 PM, immediately before the finale of "The Biggest Loser". It airs on channel 26-1 if you are using rabbit ears (yes, there are still some of us); channel 8 on Comcast and Knology.)

 

Final Results...

Well, the day finally arrived... I will use this post to describe my day, and then the next one to thank everyone for their support.

 

I got up around 6:00 AM Sunday - my usual wake-up time most Sundays - and started getting things ready for the day. I pulled out my brand-new suit and went over it twice to make sure I had no leftover threads, price tags, or all the other stuff they sew onto new clothes. This may not sound like a big deal, but for the last five months, I have been wearing hand-me-downs and Goodwill clothes to church. Slipping into a new suit with plenty of room was a wonderful way to start the day!

 

I had asked my dad to teach our Sunday School class this week, because I did not know what all this day would hold. Information about our finale has been on a need-to-know basis, and apparently they didn't think we needed to know anything until the last minute. It turned out to be a good decision, because as I noted earlier, I have been battling a nasty cold all week long. By the time the finale rolled around, I had nearly lost my voice. I have to confess that after addressing my Sunday school class briefly, I used the rest of the hour to gather my thoughts for the day ahead. I knew that Sunday afternoon I would have about 30 seconds to say everything I wanted to say, and I wanted to put some thought into it and choose my words carefully.

 

When the service was over, the family and I jumped into the car and headed downtown. They let me out at Ft. Discovery, and Brenda took the kids to grab a burger for lunch. To avoid replaying the entire day, I will hit the main things I noted in bullet points:

 

    * They had us arrive at 1 PM, but we basically did nothing until 2. The girls fussed with their hair, their makeup, and all that sort of stuff.

 

    * We knew seating was limited, but I had no idea exactly HOW limited until we got into the theater and saw how many seats had "reserved" signs on them. I immediately began texting everyone I had a phone number for to tell them that their chances of getting a seat were pretty slim. As it turned out, everyone who wanted in got in, but there were people standing and sitting in every aisle. Even with my repeated warnings at church that seating would be limited, nearly fifty of our church family came to cheer me on.

 

    * I regretted not eating lunch, because they brought us a tray of sushi backstage... ugh. By the time I got to leave after 4 PM, I was starving!

 

    *I am very glad the show wasn't live, because we started 15 minutes late.

 

After the beginning acknowledgements, they began bringing us out one at a time. I'm not sure what determined the order, but the red team went first, and we went in the following order: Tammy, Charles, Bronnie, me, Lisa, and then Nandy. Each person's "package" - the one-minute video clip they put together to introduce us - featured clips from our initial audition interview, and then from our "halfway" interview. Obviously there was a big difference in everyone's face from one clip to the next, but I distinctly remember a very visceral reaction from the crowd when my face changed from the "before" shot to the "after" shot. I don't remember if it was "wow" or applause or what, but it was a very pronounced reaction. My "after" was taped in late March, when I had already lost 113 pounds. It was the day Nandy and I went on TV with our old clothes to show off how much we had lost. They brought me out, and the crowd was pretty boistrous (might have something to do with the fact that we stocked the crowd with all those Lumpkin Road people!). I think Mark, Donna, Rob, Barry, and Johnnie were standing - not completely sure. They showed my "before" photo, and then put my stats up on the screen. The only question in my mind was, had I done enough to push that scale under 200 pounds? They showed my starting weight of 342.8 pounds (which also got a reaction from the crowd), and after a three-second delay, the ending numbers popped up. Jackpot! 199.4 pounds for an ending weight; total weight loss of 143.4 pounds.

 

The only real suspense of the day was this: Nandy, or Laycee? Nandy had taken off with an early lead in the competition, and had led by double digits (in pounds) at times, but Laycee fought and scratched her way within a pound of the lead, less than one percent back, several times during the course of the six months. Both of them worked incredibly hard, but in the end, Nandy had prevailed with a winning margin of 4.4 pounds, or 1.46%.

 

When they announced me as the winner, I thanked my wife and kids, my mom and dad, had my church family identify themselves, and then I said this: "Finally, I want to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for changing my life. Anyone can change their diet; anyone can change their exercise; but only Jesus Christ can change your life." I may have been imagining it, but I felt a little "Okay, that's enough... give me the microphone back..." from Liz... who knows. I know we were on a time crunch, and it might have been just that.

 

The rest of the afternoon unfolded pretty much as expected, although the post-show session wasn't nearly as long as I anticipated. We posed for a few pictures, and then they let us go. I had arranged to be away from church Sunday night, but I got home in plenty of time for church. I went ahead and let Ron Crouch lead singing - as I mentioned, my voice was shot.

 

I received a note from Charles' brother Michael late Sunday night, saying that he was sorry that he had to miss the afterparty at T-Bonz. If any of my fellow losers happen to read this, I didn't stand ya'll up - I did not know there were plans for after the finale. After the photos, I heard Tammy ask if we were free to leave, and somebody told her we were, so I got my family and left. I said "bye" to Mark, Donna, Nandy, and Barry, and no one said anything about dinner. So if dinner happened, I apologize for missing it, and I will go eat a steak in your honor!

 

 

Starting weight: 342.8 lbs

Ending weight: 199.4 lbs

Total pounds lost: 143.4

% of body weight lost: 41.83%

Starting waist size: 59 inches

Ending waist size: 36 inches

Total body inches lost: 74 inches

 

Final Weigh-In...

For the past eleven days, we have been furiously working to try and get more pounds off before our final weigh-in on Friday, May 14th. After "Skinny Soup", "High-Low", "Chicken, Eggs, and Tuna Plus", "Millennium Meltdown", and six months' worth of other diets, named and unnamed, it has become very difficult to trick our bodies into burning fat and releasing those extra pounds.

We came in Friday morning and did our usual workout; keep in mind, "usual" only refers to the time we meet, 5:30 AM. There is nothing "usual" about the workout itself, as we have done something different every single time we've met. But we worked, and did what we were supposed to do. We all had things to do on Friday - most of us work full-time - so we would all arrive at the gym at different times during the afternoon. After leaving the gym, I went into the office for a while, and then took off the rest of the day as I had planned to do. I had some errands to run, and then I set about the task of getting as much work as I could in. I went to the mall and walked. I went to Wal-Mart and walked. I went home and pounded a truck tire with a sledge hammer. I jumped on the trampoline for a while. Then I grabbed some lunch (skinny soup) and headed back to the gym around 2. The girl who was working the front desk stopped me after I had scanned my key fob in, and told me that my membership was expired. She was new, did not know who I was, and I don't think she knew what the Biggest Loser competition was, either. While I was trying to explain to her what was going on, Barry walked up, and I told him they wouldn't let me in the gym. He and Big Mike explained who I (and the other contestants) was, and then Mike loudly announced that we could work out today, but if any of us tried to get into the gym after midnight tonight, we were NOT to be allowed in without purchasing a membership. Yeah, we all felt quite welcome there.

I got on a treadmill and started walking; Charles came in about 45 minutes later and joined me. I did the treadmill until about 5, and then I decided I needed a change of scenery. I was going to go with Charles into the steam room / sauna - usually good for dropping at least a little weight. But something told me, no, I had gotten this far without resorting to the steam room, space-age plastic sweatsuits, or any other devices to reduce my number on the scale, other than making sure that my stomach was empty and I was not constipated on Monday. Sorry to digress into such topics, but when one goes on a high-protein, low-carb, low-fat diet, constipation is a constant battle. PHC tells me that I am their first client who actually had a case so severe that they had to go to the hospital. So I bypassed the steam room and headed for Wal-Mart, where I walked some more. I passed the aisle where the bathroom scales were sold, and there were three scales, all different models, out of the package and sitting on the floor. I took off my shoes right there in the store and got on the scale. I was hoping to be somewhere below 201... the scale displayed 199.2. I got off, let it reset, and got back on. Same result. I stepped on the other two scales (both were the dial-type), and both showed me at a tick under 200. I left Wal-Mart with a little time left before weigh-in, so I stopped at Lowe's and walked around in there for a while. I returned to the gym, got on their platform scale - same result. So HOPEFULLY my official number will be below 200. If you've been keeping up with this blog, you know that is the last number I had to crack to reach every single one of my goals for myself.

After we weighed in, the crew all went somewhere and ate Mexican... I am still feeling poorly, so I ran by Chick-Fil-A, grabbed a sandwich and some food for the family, and headed home to take cold medicine and get some fluids in me. Friday was an extremely long day...

Saturday was a good day... I got up early, did the dishes in the sink, ran some errands, went to lunch with some of our best friends (Cracker Barrel - grilled chicken sandwich on wheat bread, no cheese or bacon or mayo), and then we headed downtown for the Thunder Over Augusta celebration. We looked at the car show, watched the motocross riders do stunts off a ramp, and then watched the army guys with service dogs (this was much more impressive than it sounds - you haven't seen a dog do what a dog can do until you've watched him jump through the window of a pickup truck and drag the driver out of the same window by his arm). We left for a while, and then went back to watch the fireworks over the river.

Off to bed... tomorrow is my last day as an Augusta's Biggest Loser contestant, and I will join the ranks of Augusta's Biggest Loser alumni. If my count is correct, there will be 32 of us who have completed the program over the three years of its existence (9 + 12 + 11). If my numbers hold up, as they should, I will be one of six who have won the competition; one of three men who have won the crown; and the first contestant ever, male or female, to finish with a percentage of weight lost of over 40%.

24 Hours To Go...

It's a little surreal that this entire Biggest Loser experience is coming to an end... this day seemed like a long way away a few months back. We were counting the time left in months; months turned into weeks, then into days, and now, it's hours. I will probably write several concluding posts as I move through the weekend, but just a few thoughts here on Thursday - the LAST Thursday that I can say "I'm participating in the Augusta's Biggest Loser competition".

I've been sick since sometime on Monday of this week - pretty sure it's just a cold, but somehow, they always seem nastier in the warmth and humidity of spring as it rolls into summer. I thought yesterday was the worst day, until today rolled around. Yesterday I managed to make a hospital visit (yeah, I know you're not supposed to do that) and preached at church last night, but today, I spent the entire day in bed, except for a little light cardio at the gym this morning (and I do mean "little", and I do mean "light"), and my appointment at PHC. I enjoy my PHC appointments - I can only remember really being fussed at one time early on, but usually my visits are very pleasant, and usually pretty short.

Today they took my final set of measurements that will be taken during this competition. I don't have all the numbers in front of me right now, but I do know that I have lost 23 inches in my waist alone. Overall, I have lost 74 inches, a set of measurements that includes chest, waist, beltline, arm at the biceps, and wrist. I've lowered my blood pressure to 112/70; as I wrote halfway through, my bloodwork all came back fabulous; and last week, my doctor kicked me out with a clean bill of health and told me to come back in a year.

I asked for advice for the last day of the competition - I'm pretty much just to follow the same routine I've been doing on weigh-in day since we started. Other than a little extra work in the gym, I've stuck pretty much to the same routine since day one, and not really needed to vary too much.

I've talked a little in the past few weeks about hitting my goals, and I assigned various weights to those goals - breaking the record for highest percentage, losing 140 lbs, and getting below 200 lbs. I won't know until Sunday if I achieved those goals, but there's another set of goals I wanted to reach, and I have accomplished those. My first, most overreaching goal, was that I wanted to change my life. I've done that. My life is so different now at near 200 lbs than it was at 350, you can't imagine the contrast if you haven't lived it. My second goal was that, whether I hit a specific number or not, I wanted to be "done" when we hit the end of the process - in other words, I didn't want to have to clean up 30 or 40 pounds once the competition ended. I'm not taking anything away from anyone who still has weight to lose; on the contrary, some of them have been so inspirational to me during this process, and I respect every single pound that has been lost (over 1,000 pounds as of last weigh-in, with only 11 people participating). I had just personally hoped I could say "I'm there" at the end of the journey, and I think I've accomplished that The weight I had to lose is all the weight I could have lost during these six months, I feel. My third goal was that I wanted to be able to take the things I'd learned, the success I've been having, and use those things to help other people. Even before I was halfway done in my journey, I've had the opportunity to help several individuals, and to start a blog about living a healthy lifestyle using the things I've learned. Finally, the last intangible goal I've had was to be able to say, "I have no regrets about anything I've done or didn't do during the competition." I missed exactly one workout during the entire 6 months due to an unavoidable trip; I worked out myself at the hotel where we stayed, and I still lost 10 pounds that week. I was late a couple of times, but we all were at sometime. (Just for the record, Nandy did not miss a single team workout - not one.) I made it to the gym after spending most of the night in the emergency room once; I made it after being up with a sick kid all night; I did everything I could. On the food side of the equation, I did not put one bite of food in my mouth that I was not supposed to have. Was I ever tempted? Sure, I was. The weekend we started, there was a turkey fry at our church; then Thanksgiving, Christmas parties galore, Christmas dinner, New Year's Day - it seemed like there was always an occasion to eat. Our church has monthly birthday fellowships on the first Sunday night; our missions emphasis month in February had food every Sunday afternoon. There was anniversary Sunday and Easter and Mother's Day, and all the usual times to eat. Besides those scheduled "opportunities", I have two kids approaching adulthood who don't eat the way I have learned to eat, and there have been many trips to the fast food places and the pizza joints. I will never forget the first trip to Papa John's shortly after I began, because my kids had ordered garlic bread, and it was so buttery and garlicky, it stunk up my van for a week. My Biggest Loser journey encompassed every single birthday in our family except for my son's (three in the third week of April alone), and I ate no cake or ice cream for any of them. There were trips to Krispy Kreme for various early-morning church functions, and countless other opportunities to "cheat". I can say with a clear conscience before the Lord that not one time did I ever eat a french fry, a cookie, or even a food item in a restaurant if I thought it had too much butter, fat, or sodium for me.

Lots of people have praised my "willpower", but I told my Sunday school class this past Sunday that it wasn't a matter of willpower; it was simply day by day, sometimes minute by minute, making my choices based on what I wanted to become, not based on what I wanted. The blogs, the photos, the repeated viewings of "The Biggest Loser" - all those things helped me stay focused on what I wanted to become, and allowed me to by-pass the things I thought I wanted. I used to look at my favorite breakfast on the Sonic menu and think, "I want that." Now I can look at it and think, "that will kill you if you eat it enough times." A whole day's worth of calories, carbohydrates, fat, and sodium wrapped up in a burrito, and I would toss back a pair of them and a 44-ounce soft drink. AND be ready for lunch three hours later, where I would consume another whole day's worth (or more) of calories, carbohydrates, fat, and sodium.

All I'm trying to say is this: whether or not I hit my numerical goals; whether or not I win the contest or not, I've achieved the goals that really matter in the long run. I'm not too heavy for the ladder; I'm not the biggest guy in the room, no matter what room I'm in; I don't have discussions with myself about whether a 2x shirt will shrink so much that I'd be better off buying a 3x.

My life has been changed, and sometime over the weekend or early next week, I will pass out my "thank you's" in a later post.

I Get Sick At The Worst Times...

Last night my right eye started getting really red... thought it might be allergies, since I've been doing a lot of stuff outside over the weekend. But this morning I woke up with full-blown cold symptoms, and those colds you get when the weather is warm always seem worse to me. I got home from the gym this morning with every intention of going back to bed, but after breakfast I got an email from PHC, asking if I was available to go down to the TV studio and tape one more spot for Wednesday morning's newscast. I'm not the best on-air personality in the group (that would probably have to be Lisa), but I have the most flexible schedule, and I'm the easiest to reach on short notice. Donna explained that she had been prepared to talk about childhood obesity, but since this was the last spot before the finale, she wanted to talk about us. I did my due diligence to talk about PHC when Jay threw it to me. It's not hard to do - the crew at PHC knows their stuff. I sat in the center between Jay Jefferies and Donna, but most of the spot was conversation between the two of them. I tried to look nice and stay out of the way! PHC had asked me to bring a "before" photo to the studio, so I grabbed my ABL notebook and brought all my pics. Donna was astounded - apparently no one has kept as careful a record of their experience as I have. I have taken all my blog entries, all my photos (before and during), the weight-in result charts, my personal weight charts, and put all of them into page protectors, and then into a three-ring binder. We had a lot of fun at PHC this morning looking through my pics with Donna, Savannah, and Priscilla.

 

I'm curious as to how the rest of the Losers, particularly those on the other team, are preparing for Friday night's final weigh-in. I do find it odd that, with all the tools available to us at Omni, I see no one working out when I'm at the gym. Maybe I just keep odd hours... I've pretty much kept the 5:30 AM workout time ever since we started, because it just seems to work best for me. I'm not on any super-secret mega-plan regarding my food; in fact, I'm not doing anything that I haven't done at some time during the competition. I have pretty much stopped sending my daily pedometer readings in to Johnnie, but I have not stopped walking. I shoot him my numbers a couple of times a week, and I still shoot for 10,000 steps every day. What's the old saying - "dance with the one that brung ya"...

 

We have, at this point, very little information about our finale "show" on Sunday. We all got an e-mail yesterday from the promotions manager at NBC, saying that the "makeovers" will be done on Sunday morning at 8:15 for anyone who wanted to participate. I assume that means hair and makeup for the girls; hair trims for the guys (although since Colin got a haircut and Tanner got a "buzz cut", I have more hair than anyone, and I don't need a haircut right now). I will be in church Sunday morning, and then head on over to Ft. Discovery and meet up with everyone there at 1:00 PM. I really feel torn between telling our church family to get there early, and leaving enough seats to accommodate the friends of the other 10 contestants. Jay said to me this morning, "I hear you're bringing your whole church Sunday", and I told him I was kinda waving some of them off by telling them there may not be enough seats. He just said, "hey - first come, first serve... tell them to come on!"

 

PHC may be having us do a photo shoot Saturday morning, but the rest of the day should be free, and we have our annual Thunder Over Augusta fireworks show Saturday night. Once the trauma of the weigh-ins is over with, it will be an enjoyable, memorable weekend. To my fellow Biggest Losers, regardless of who wins in either the male or female categories, take in the entire experience, and understand how unique this has been for all of us.

The Final Saturday...

Today was the last Saturday before our final weigh-in... seems hard to believe. I slept in a little this morning, after not really having gotten any good sleep since Tuesday night, and went to the gym a little before 9:00 AM. Upon arriving, I did a little warm-up and then went out back to see if anyone I knew was working out outside. It was just Johnnie and Big Mike (not the Big Mike who trains people while he eats biscuits for breakfast; Big Mike, the super-muscular, super-big guy who is always carrying a gallon jug of some concoction, and always makes a point of stopping to talk to us about how well we are doing.) Lisa was there, doing her thing on the elliptical, while her husband Ramon was in a spin class. I came back in, got on the treadmill to do some cardio, and discovered that the treadmill apparently was out of whack. Three times it put itself on pause - the first two, I thought I had done something, but quickly realized that no part of my body was anywhere near the pause or stop buttons. If you've never been running on a treadmill when someone hits "stop" without you knowing it, it's quite a jarring experience. I dutifully reported it to the front desk, where some fairly new guy whipped out a "Tempoarily (sp) Out of Service" sign. (They are good with those signs - apparently they hung one on the clothes dryer, and spent the entire day Friday telling clients that the dryer was broken and there were no towels. Not sure why it didn't occur to any of them to load up a car and haul a load to the laundromat that is pretty close by. But whatever.) I finished my workout, and headed to the house. I still wasn't feeling extremely well today, but had a lot of stuff to do. I got the oil and air filters changed in the ol' minivan, went by the church to do some stuff, came home and cooked lunch, mowed grass for Mom and Dad, took Steven shopping for Mother's Day, and some other things.

 

Brenda (my dear wife) went through her entire closet today... she has dropped several sizes, and it was her turn to cull through her clothes and figure out what to keep and what to give away. I'm very proud of her - without nutrition counselors or a trainer, she has dropped nearly 40 pounds in the last few months. In going through the clothes, she found my old Awana uniform - a shirt which, in its heyday, barely fit me. (For those of you familiar with Awana, it was an old gray uniform shirt. For those of you who do not know what Awana is, think boy scout uniform, but in light gray with red accents.)

 

Backtracking a little, I went to Omni's Walton Way branch with Brenda Friday evening. It wasn't very crowded, and I did a little cardio while she worked a bit harder than me. Lance came over and talked to me, and was very complimentary. He said that most of the guys that have gone through ABL look like they still have some weight to lose after the finale, but I was "already there - skinny". He left, and a few minutes later brought his sales manager, Jonathan, over to meet me. With a manufacturing background, I'm always wary of salespeople, but he was nice, and also complimentary.

 

Anyway, after supper we went to Walmart to pick up my food for the next few days, along with other things we needed around the house. All in all, a pretty normal day today.

A Sense of Accomplishment... Seven Days to Go

It is a very eerie feeling that some of the things I was hoping for when I began this back in November are starting to come to fruition. Some are little, some are big; all are important to me.

 

1. Somewhere along the way, "I'm-just-happy-to-be-here" turned into "I-want-to-win-this-thing". It is amazing what a little taste of accomplishment will do to fuel the desire to succeed. Success, as they say, breeds success. When it became apparent to me that I had a real shot at winning the competition, one of the thoughts that I tucked away in the back of my mind was that I wanted to not only win, but to win by reaching the highest percentage of weight loss for any ABL participant ever. Officially, with this past Monday's weigh-in, I achieved that goal (barring a total collapse between now and the final weigh-in!) My inquiries and research came up with the factoid that Pam Segers, last year's female winner, had a 39.05% weight loss. As of Monday, May 3, my percentage was 39.26%. If I hit my goal by losing 8.3 more pounds by next Friday night, my percentage will be 41.69%. Winners will not be announced until next Sunday's finale, but I know how my scales compare with the Omni scale, and I will know if I made it.

 

2. I've mentioned the whole clothes-buying thing in various posts throughout the competition; today I bought my first-ever off-the-rack suit from the regular men's section in a regular store - no "Big and Tall" (the grown-up equivalent of the infamous "husky boys" section). You cannot possibly know how it feels unless you've experienced it.

 

3. I was given a unique opportunity on Thursday - our church hosted the May meeting of the Georgia Baptist Bible Fellowship, and due to an unforeseen circumstance, I was given an opportunity to be on "standby" in case the pastor who was scheduled to speak first was not able to do so because of illness. He did speak, but he preached a short message; time flew by, and there was plenty of time left for me to speak. However, instead of being the first speaker, as originally planned for, I was the last speaker before our snack break. I questioned aloud the wisdom of allowing a preacher who had just lost 135 pounds to preach right before we went back to eat! I shared a very simple message - "Run Well" - from I Corinthians 9. In that passage I saw desire, discipline, direction, and determination. Probably an outline they had heard preached 20 times before, but probably not by someone who was in my position. For the rest of my life, I will be able to talk about the fact that God has brought me out of an addiction to the most widely-abused substance in the United States. After I finished my message, we went to the fellowship hall where the fruit was devoured quickly, and a HUGE pile of cookies went nearly untouched.

 

We're REALLY in the home stretch... and there's no time to let up. My goal is ambitious, still... trying to push that scale down under 200 by May 14th, 7:00 PM.

 

Stay tuned...

Getting Close...

For the most part, this week was uneventful until around Friday. Our pastor had to go out of town to be with his family while his mother had open heart surgery, and I had the privilege of speaking in our mid-week Bible study on Wednesday. Thursday was quiet...

 

Friday morning we got to go over into the new side of Omni - P.U.R.E, they call it. If you google it, you get water filters. It's an acronym that I can't remember right now, but they have tractor tires and sledge hammers and sandbags and ropes and all sorts of cool stuff to exercise with. Friday was our first time over there; SOMEBODY who shall remain nameless got a little overzealous with dropping a sandbag near a window, and it shattered the glass. Word is that we are now banned from P.U.R.E. workouts. I don't know if that's the case or not, but if so, that's pretty silly. We can break a $4,000 treadmill with no consequence, but break a $100 (and, I might add, OLD) piece of glass, and we get thrown out. Lovely......

 

One big personal thing for me Friday morning happened after we finished our workout: I walked over to an arrangement of overhead bars, grabbed one I could reach, and attempted a pull-up. The bar started coming closer, and I realized, I WAS DOING MY FIRST-EVER PULL-UP! Nobody was paying attention... so with all the strength I had left, while I was still at the top, I yelled, "JOHNNIE!" THAT got everyone's attention... I was so proud of what I had been able to accomplish, and in that moment, I think the thought finally settled into my mind, "I'm really getting there." Amazing moment for me.

 

Today, Saturday, was the big Plane Pull. We put together a combined team of Biggest Loser contestants, PHC folks, our trainer Johnnie, several folks from NBC including Liz Hill and Navideh Forghani, and a stray football player from another team that we drafted to give us 20 people. The object was to pull a plane 12 feet in the fastest time. Our time was 9.241 seconds; some teams were turning in times under 7 seconds. Can't feel too bad, though... our throw-together team of half men and half ladies beat the U.S. Navy team!

 

We hung around the plane pull a little longer, and then made a beeline back to the church to go bowling with our teens and young adults. It's been a long time since I bowled - at least five years, by my count. A bad back limits what you can do, but I was feeling good today. Man, was I rusty! My first frame was 0/0.... I managed to break 100 the first game, but didn't even break 90 my second game.

 

All this fun was sandwiched between a morning of working on my car, and an evening of yard work. All told, I logged over 13,000 steps walking today.

 

Two weeks from today will be the first day of watching what I eat WITHOUT the pressure of the competition. Final weigh-in is 13 days away, and our final Monday weigh-in is this Monday night. Tonight I ordered a pizza for Steven, and when I opened the lid to make sure they got my order right, I wanted a piece SO badly! Not even a piece - just a bite. There will be a time for moderation, but I will never, EVER forget what all that junk food did to my body, and the work it has taken to get rid of the accumulated consequences. That's one reason why I've written this blog... posted these pictures... I said in an earlier post that they were evidence of my success, but they are also reminders of my past failures. I hope to always hold on to both the positive and the negative sides, because we need different kinds of motivation at different times.